Re: [Fsfe-uk] Bromcom undead ?

[Alex Hudson]

On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 16:58 +0000, James Heald wrote:
> UK.gov in scrap over school e-register patent
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/24/schools_patent/
> 
> I thought we were fairly certain UK gov had won this one?

UK gov *sounded* fairly certain that they had won; clearly the judgement
has more wiggle-room. 

> Can anybody who's been following this case say, has Bromcom found 
> another leg to stand on, or has its brain just not realised it's dead yet ?

I don't know, but from the description it sounds simply that they were
given leave to amend their patent claim. The next step would then for
them to re-file their amended claims, which presumably would be worded
such that the prior art turned up by DfES would not infringe the patent
(i.e., they would narrow their claims).

According to their website, the prior art was about the file-sharing
part of their patent, and not the wireless system. If they can narrow
(or remove) their claims over registration systems utilizing network
file shares, but keep the claims for a registration system working
wirelessly, then I guess we're still up s-creek.

This could be both bad and good. It's a good example of a business
patent, and a pretty awful one at that. If we can get some facts &
figures (e.g., costs of the action so far), this might help shore up the
argument that the "status quo" of the patent regime vis-a-vis algorithms
and methods needs to be re-examined (i.e., any potential convention
should not allow such patents - presumably the software is providing the
technical contribution here)

Cheers,

Alex.